In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.
- G.I. Gurdjieff
- G.I. Gurdjieff
11/04/2017
09/04/2017
Reconnecting with nature makes us healthier & happier
Reconnecting with nature makes us healthier & happier -- Science of the Spirit: Over 100 studies have shown that being in nature—or even watching it in videos—benefits our brains, bodies, feelings, thought processes, and social interactions.
02/04/2017
Ayahuasca — The Fashionable Path of Awakening?
“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.” These words were spoken by Krishnamurti in 1929 as he dissolved the global spiritual organization that had formed in order to promote him as the new Messiah. As I witness the growing popularity ayahuasca, I hope we do not turn this medicine into a Messiah that has to come to save us. Although I see ayahuasca as a powerful tool of individual and planetary awakening, I am also seeing it evolve into a spiritually-sophisticated brand that we wear and glorify. As any trend becomes more popular, authentic original impulses are replaced by unconscious conformity: we follow trends as unquestioning groups, rather than as conscious free-willing individuals.
The New Yorker recently published an article on ayahuasca, calling it the “drug of choice for the age of kale”. The author narrated her only ayahuasca experience, in a Brooklyn yoga studio, next to a “thumping dance club”. The article makes no mention of the rich cultural diversity of ayahuasca traditions or the countless stories of ayahuasca-assisted personal transformation. However, I thought her association of ayahuasca with kale was spot-on. Ayahuasca may be answering the call for a global paradigm shift, yet it also fulfills an obsessive craving for wellness, detox, and healing. Plant medicines can be powerful catalysts for healing, when approached with individual and social self-awareness, and these two forms of awareness – of ourselves and of our society – are difficult to cultivate when we do what the cool kids are doing. What we can do is learn to discriminate between self-expression and imitation, and between the authentic desires of our hearts and the chatter of our minds. Are we acting from our core or simply being blown around by the cultural zeitgeist?
When to take ayahuasca?
These distinctions are absolutely necessary. Powerful tools can be misused and have damaging effects. My original inspiration for writing this article was a botched iboga ceremony that left me so traumatized that I was forced to accept that 1) there were some highly irresponsible and reckless shamans/healers out there and 2) there were highly irresponsible and reckless individuals like myself naively attending ceremonies without proper awareness. I’ll save the details for a future article, but I will share that I experienced an abyss so unbearably painful that my only wish was for it to end, without caring what came after this end. I understood the torment of suicide. These realms of consciousness are real. I share them here not out of masochism, but to emphasize the importance of preparation, discrimination, and intuition.
We can sharpen our skills by coming back to the basics: set and setting. Set – why am I here? And how do I really feel in my heart of hearts? Setting – do I feel safe? Do I trust this environment and the people around me? It is crucial to critically evaluate the shaman by their “fruits”: what type of life has this person created for themselves? How do they relate to their family and partner? How do they relate to their assistants and workers? Have the workers been there a long time? Are they happy to work there? These questions reveal a lot about what kind of person the shaman is, and therefore what kind of shaman they are.
We also need to de-romanticize our understanding of shamanic traditions. We crave for more natural, organic lives, for health, and for wisdom, so it is not a surprise that we fantasize about Amazonian tribes and their psychedelic brews. But our colorful projections have consequences and can reinforce racist, neocolonial dynamics. Not all medicines are appropriate at a given time or compatible with a given person. Indigenous peoples are born into tribes, whereas Westerners self-select into their tribes. Not all shamans heal; some throw curses; others do both. And I have yet to meet a shaman who calls themselves a shaman. Shaman is a word from Siberia popularized by Western anthropologists to categorize a wide variety of seemingly related spiritual practices.
Our interaction with indigenous medicines is not a one way street – with us simply “gaining wisdom” from them. As any quantum physicist or modern anthropologist will tell you, observation entails participation. It’s a two way street: the massive influx of ayahuasca tourists to the Amazon impacts local economies, culture, and healing traditions. In addition to our own healing, we need to remember that indigenous communities have their own healing to do. Are we operating as co-creators or are we imposing ourselves on them? Am I giving as much as I am taking? And where is all this ayahuasca coming from? This is not a question of shame, but of awareness.
The reality of indigenous peoples is not a Jungle Book fairy tale. Their cultures are steadily declining in the face of consumerism, missionary activity, and the rape of nature by oil pipelines and industrial super-farms. Ayahuasca tourism is a booming industry in much of the northwest Amazon and its reality is more nuanced than we like to think. Explore the backstreets of Iquitos, Peru and see for yourself the shadow side of the Western appetite for healing.
Please don’t mistake my words for pessimism. The intention that infuse these words is for renewed awareness and courage. Charles Eisenstein writes that “no optimism can be authentic that has not visited the depths of despair…no despair is authentic that has not fully let in the joy.” The world is not ending. It is only changing, as all things change. Stop, breathe, be gentle. May all beings be happy and peaceful.
by Félix de Rosen
Félix de Rosen is a free spirit who aims to catalyze conscious planetary evolution. His long-term vision is to organize sacred arts festivals and create spaces of trust, spontaneity, and transparency. He was born in France, grew up in the US, and is learning how to let go and relax. He is currently based in California.
The New Yorker recently published an article on ayahuasca, calling it the “drug of choice for the age of kale”. The author narrated her only ayahuasca experience, in a Brooklyn yoga studio, next to a “thumping dance club”. The article makes no mention of the rich cultural diversity of ayahuasca traditions or the countless stories of ayahuasca-assisted personal transformation. However, I thought her association of ayahuasca with kale was spot-on. Ayahuasca may be answering the call for a global paradigm shift, yet it also fulfills an obsessive craving for wellness, detox, and healing. Plant medicines can be powerful catalysts for healing, when approached with individual and social self-awareness, and these two forms of awareness – of ourselves and of our society – are difficult to cultivate when we do what the cool kids are doing. What we can do is learn to discriminate between self-expression and imitation, and between the authentic desires of our hearts and the chatter of our minds. Are we acting from our core or simply being blown around by the cultural zeitgeist?
When to take ayahuasca?
These distinctions are absolutely necessary. Powerful tools can be misused and have damaging effects. My original inspiration for writing this article was a botched iboga ceremony that left me so traumatized that I was forced to accept that 1) there were some highly irresponsible and reckless shamans/healers out there and 2) there were highly irresponsible and reckless individuals like myself naively attending ceremonies without proper awareness. I’ll save the details for a future article, but I will share that I experienced an abyss so unbearably painful that my only wish was for it to end, without caring what came after this end. I understood the torment of suicide. These realms of consciousness are real. I share them here not out of masochism, but to emphasize the importance of preparation, discrimination, and intuition.
We can sharpen our skills by coming back to the basics: set and setting. Set – why am I here? And how do I really feel in my heart of hearts? Setting – do I feel safe? Do I trust this environment and the people around me? It is crucial to critically evaluate the shaman by their “fruits”: what type of life has this person created for themselves? How do they relate to their family and partner? How do they relate to their assistants and workers? Have the workers been there a long time? Are they happy to work there? These questions reveal a lot about what kind of person the shaman is, and therefore what kind of shaman they are.
We also need to de-romanticize our understanding of shamanic traditions. We crave for more natural, organic lives, for health, and for wisdom, so it is not a surprise that we fantasize about Amazonian tribes and their psychedelic brews. But our colorful projections have consequences and can reinforce racist, neocolonial dynamics. Not all medicines are appropriate at a given time or compatible with a given person. Indigenous peoples are born into tribes, whereas Westerners self-select into their tribes. Not all shamans heal; some throw curses; others do both. And I have yet to meet a shaman who calls themselves a shaman. Shaman is a word from Siberia popularized by Western anthropologists to categorize a wide variety of seemingly related spiritual practices.
Our interaction with indigenous medicines is not a one way street – with us simply “gaining wisdom” from them. As any quantum physicist or modern anthropologist will tell you, observation entails participation. It’s a two way street: the massive influx of ayahuasca tourists to the Amazon impacts local economies, culture, and healing traditions. In addition to our own healing, we need to remember that indigenous communities have their own healing to do. Are we operating as co-creators or are we imposing ourselves on them? Am I giving as much as I am taking? And where is all this ayahuasca coming from? This is not a question of shame, but of awareness.
The reality of indigenous peoples is not a Jungle Book fairy tale. Their cultures are steadily declining in the face of consumerism, missionary activity, and the rape of nature by oil pipelines and industrial super-farms. Ayahuasca tourism is a booming industry in much of the northwest Amazon and its reality is more nuanced than we like to think. Explore the backstreets of Iquitos, Peru and see for yourself the shadow side of the Western appetite for healing.
Please don’t mistake my words for pessimism. The intention that infuse these words is for renewed awareness and courage. Charles Eisenstein writes that “no optimism can be authentic that has not visited the depths of despair…no despair is authentic that has not fully let in the joy.” The world is not ending. It is only changing, as all things change. Stop, breathe, be gentle. May all beings be happy and peaceful.
Félix de Rosen is a free spirit who aims to catalyze conscious planetary evolution. His long-term vision is to organize sacred arts festivals and create spaces of trust, spontaneity, and transparency. He was born in France, grew up in the US, and is learning how to let go and relax. He is currently based in California.
Spiritual Bypassing: Ten completely B.S. practices of supposedly spiritual people
In Robert August Masters' groundbreaking book, Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us From What Really Matters, he writes:
"Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one's negativity or shadow side, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being."
Spiritual Bypassing: Ten completely B.S. practices of supposedly spiritual people -- Science of the Spirit
"Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one's negativity or shadow side, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being."
Spiritual Bypassing: Ten completely B.S. practices of supposedly spiritual people -- Science of the Spirit
Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
- Mohandas Gandhi
- Mohandas Gandhi
19/03/2017
Have you not noticed that love is silence?
"The greater the outward show, the greater the inward poverty."
-J. Krishnamurti
-J. Krishnamurti
Know this for all of my days
Some past part of me is being recycled back into my current life.
I was in a great transition, playing the hanged man like my soul was put on hold. Now there are pieces coming back to me; parts of the whole.
This is another soul-retrieval spanning years that is coming to completion. I can feel as I once did, yet from a more grounded perspective, yes this is a new freedom.
There are many new questions and doubts as there must be. There are new paths unwinding and doors firmly shut behind me.
Some would say; well you are getting older, this is only natural. I could agree, yet I feel younger, much younger, I'm going through a new adolescence as my spirit is rejuvenated.
No-one is old unless they feel young and innocent again, moving through a time and place that is untouched by attachment to outcomes. Now I am ready to be alone, to be whole, to be fulfilled as I am.
Don't look back, just leave it, let it be. I have wanted this for so long. Only my body could show me, teach me. It felt like lifetimes of pain, they were just years. It felt like an onslaught; brutal in it's tenacity yet nothing could be so loving as this body has been to me. I would never have listened, so stubborn is the flesh. I was wary of the brightness.
So intense is the light that we all cling and cower in the shadows of our own making, all will be made clear, all will be realized to be released. In time we all grow old and older and then young again, again and again.
What always got me was the serpent that devours the tail and twists and turns around the tree in a spiral of flirtatious longing and deceptive loving.
It confused me to know my lustful nature, it confused me to know my purity of being. They are intertwined always, so whispers my body softly. Come hither and lye down; I am moaning in ecstasy for the earthiness of my incarnation.
I am sprawled out like a landscape, shining this sun on my chest, on my arms and legs and on my face. I am massaging the living waters into my skin, rubbing and smoothing the features.
I have come to know this as medicine for the soulful glands.
It all just flows like a mountain stream now. To know this for all of my days, o to realize this for the rest of my many years.
I was in a great transition, playing the hanged man like my soul was put on hold. Now there are pieces coming back to me; parts of the whole.
This is another soul-retrieval spanning years that is coming to completion. I can feel as I once did, yet from a more grounded perspective, yes this is a new freedom.
There are many new questions and doubts as there must be. There are new paths unwinding and doors firmly shut behind me.
Some would say; well you are getting older, this is only natural. I could agree, yet I feel younger, much younger, I'm going through a new adolescence as my spirit is rejuvenated.
No-one is old unless they feel young and innocent again, moving through a time and place that is untouched by attachment to outcomes. Now I am ready to be alone, to be whole, to be fulfilled as I am.
Don't look back, just leave it, let it be. I have wanted this for so long. Only my body could show me, teach me. It felt like lifetimes of pain, they were just years. It felt like an onslaught; brutal in it's tenacity yet nothing could be so loving as this body has been to me. I would never have listened, so stubborn is the flesh. I was wary of the brightness.
So intense is the light that we all cling and cower in the shadows of our own making, all will be made clear, all will be realized to be released. In time we all grow old and older and then young again, again and again.
What always got me was the serpent that devours the tail and twists and turns around the tree in a spiral of flirtatious longing and deceptive loving.
It confused me to know my lustful nature, it confused me to know my purity of being. They are intertwined always, so whispers my body softly. Come hither and lye down; I am moaning in ecstasy for the earthiness of my incarnation.
I am sprawled out like a landscape, shining this sun on my chest, on my arms and legs and on my face. I am massaging the living waters into my skin, rubbing and smoothing the features.
I have come to know this as medicine for the soulful glands.
It all just flows like a mountain stream now. To know this for all of my days, o to realize this for the rest of my many years.
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